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Psychedelic Experiences And Meditation Generate ‘Highly Similar’ Insights Tied To ‘Wellbeing Improvements’, Study Shows – MEDCAN24

Participants who reported “highly comparable” insights and “predicted wellbeing improvements,” in a new study, had personal meaningful experiences of either meditation or psychedelics.

Consciousness and Cognition’s August issue published a report that revealed mystic-type insights to be more common among meditation experience reports. Value insights, on the other hand, were much more prevalent with psychedelic stories. Other than that, reported insights are very similar in both types of reports. There were only slight differences between non-classic and classic psychedelics.

The researchers reviewed 213 narratives, including 147 participants’ reports of meaningful experiences with psychoedelics. They also examined 66 people’s meaningful meditation experiences. In order to conduct the study, researchers divided psychedelics in classic and non-classic categories (including LSD and DMT), as well as MDMA, ketamine, and cannabis.

Report: “The findings highlight similarity between psychedelic- and meditation-experiences,” “supporting that transformative experience is not exclusively a classic psychedelic but can also be achieved through other means.”

“Insights were highly similar between meditation and psychedelics… Metacognitive, mystical, and value insights predict wellbeing improvements.”

The study was authored by a seven-person team representing Åbo Akademi University, the University of Turku and the University of Helsinki, in Finland; the University of Skövde in Sweden; and Stanford University in the United States.

Both meditation and psychedelics facilitated what researchers called a “broad range of insights,” which were categorized into “Mystical-type (subclasses Unity, Metaphysical, and Other), Psychological (subclasses Metacognitive, Value, and Compassion), and Philosophical-existential (subclasses Purpose, Value, and Other).”

Metacognitive and mystical insights as well as value insights are associated with improvements in perceived wellbeing. The study team also said that participants reported insight “not captured fully by existing surveys.”

“Reports of both types of experiences included mystical-type, psychological, and philosophical-existential insights, with only minor differences between psychedelic and meditation experiences,” the study concludes. The study concludes that “These findings highlight similarities between personal meaningful psychedelic or meditation experiences as well as experiences facilitated with different types psychedelic drugs.”

Results suggest that both meditation and psychedelics can help facilitate insights other than mystical insights. They also indicate that these insights may be associated with perceived improvements in well-being.

The new study examines psychedelics separately from meditation, but research conducted earlier in the year looked at the interaction between the two. The study found that nearly three-quarters of adults who meditate regularly believed that the use of psychedelics improved their meditation.

In the research published in PLoS ONE journal, 863 adult respondents who had meditated three or more times a week for the last year were surveyed. Seventy-three percent of them said that psychedelics were beneficial for their meditation.

A separate study released in 2023 found that people who practiced yoga after consuming marijuana experienced heightened mindfulness and mysticality, indicating that setting and behavior also played an important role in modulating a person’s experience.

This paper stated that the study results “generally show that your actions while experiencing cannabis effects matter.” The study found that, similar to psychedelics and psychedelic drugs, the way you use cannabis can affect its therapeutic effects.

Another study, published last year, found that people who’d used multiple different formulations of psilocybin—including whole mushrooms, mycological extract and a lab-synthesized version—typically preferred whole mushrooms, which they describe as not only more effective but also “more alive and vibrant.”

Another study from last year, which explored the role of psilocybin mushrooms in the evolution of human consciousness, said the psychedelic has the “potential to trigger significant neurological and psychological effects” that could have influenced the development of our species over time.

Meanwhile a recent paper by Johns Hopkins University researchers on the effects of psychedelics found that—contrary to some earlier evidence—a single psilocybin experience isn’t likely to make an atheist believe in God or dispel someone’s sense of free will. However, it may inspire the belief in animals, plants and even things like robots or rocks.

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